Tag Archives: samsung-galaxy

This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of Samsung Mobile. All opinions are 100% mine.

The Samsung Galaxy S will be available soon in the AT&T network. I’ve been able to play with it for the past week or so. Despite moderate usage, I haven’t had to charge it since first turning it on. The battery astounded me, to be quite honest. I’ve been pretty happy with this phone. Despite a few negative remarks I’ve seen elsewhere about this phone, this is the best Android device I’ve tried to date. This will definitely be my default Android phone from now on.

It is extremely lightweight. It feels good in the hand, and the screen is large and gorgeous. The screen is super SUPER bright and vibrant. It’s so bright, in fact, that I had to turn the brightness down. The touch screen is extremely responsive. This means that the processor is fast, and everything is speedy out of the box. I feel this is quality hardware on a quality operating system.

In terms of resolution and capabilities, the camera on the Galaxy S is fantastic where HD video is concerned. If you didn’t already notice, I had uploaded a video review of an iPhone screen protector that I wasn’t happy with. That video was shot using this Galaxy S phone. For some reason, in a low-quality setting, I tend to get these “bars” on the video. I’m not sure if you detect that, but I did through the viewfinder. This is some small lines that appear in videos and photos. I’m not sure if this is a hardware or software issue, though. Hopefully Samsung will look into it.

This phone is running the TouchWiz interface, which is nice for helping you to quickly connect up your social networks. The out-of-the-box experience is honestly very good. For instance, swiping the screen in any direction will automatically open up the lock screen. Hello! That, my friends, is what intuitive is all about.

This is a fantastic Android device, no doubt about it… especially when it will only cost you $200 with a new contract. What I like beyond the price and screen is that Samsung paid attention to what a user might actually want when they turn their phone on for the first time. They added some very popular apps right into the phone, including Layer. Layer is so good that it will get a future video all of its own.

More than anything that impressed me, when I launched the Apps application, I saw a few of these default apps. Normally, apps pushed through a manufacturer’s site or service kind of suck, to put it bluntly. However, I was pretty impressed with many of the ones that I found within Samsung.

Again, my summary is that this is the best Android device I’ve used to date. There are a few negatives, but in my opinion they do not detract from the overall performance of the phone. Yes, there is a replaceable battery. However, in order to get the back of the phone off to GET to said battery you’ll need long fingernails or some type of very thin tool to pry it open.

As Apple pointed out, many other phones lose signal when using a “death grip.” It’s honestly not just the iPhone 4 that does this. The same thing happens with the Galaxy S, as shown in a video on YouTube.

Just about anything you would want in an Android device can be found in the Galaxy S. Are you thinking of grabbing one for yourself?

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This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of Samsung Mobile. All opinions are 100% mine.

The new Samsung Galaxy S is definitely a phone worth taking more than a second look at. The screen is bright and beautiful. Text and images aren’t quite as sharp as what you’ll find on the iPhone 4’s screen, though. I’m not the first to claim this as a truth, but it is a very minimal difference. The screen is also very responsive to the touch, which is definitely a large plus. I’ve worked with other phones that just – aren’t.

As an Android device goes, this experience is clean out of the gate – at least, as passed to me by Samsung. It was exceedingly easy to set up and get going. The 1GHz Hummingbird processor coupled with up to 16GB of internal storage makes this a phone that can handle nearly anything you request of it. Keep in mind there’s also a microSD slot capable of handling up to 32GB cards.

The default camera app works well enough for still images and video. The mechanism did produce quite a large amount of horizontal line noise in low-light conditions, though. There are two cameras on the device: the back camera is a 5MP auto-focus unit. The front camera is a VGA-quality, perfect for video calls.

The default menu bar, when opened, allows you to quickly toggle WiFi, Bluetooth, Silent operations and Vibration. This makes it a snap to change between various modes of operation.

Sim and microSD slots are only accessible if you remove the back cover. While this may seem to be a bit of a pain to some, I am going to assume it was done to keep dust and debris from collecting in the spaces when they aren’t being used (and to protect your cards from damage when they are). The USB port has a sliding cover over it. Again, I feel this was done to help protect the area – and that is a plus for me.

Under the cover, you’ll find the Android credentials overlayed with Samsung’s own TouchWiz 3.0 interface. You are able to disable TouchWiz and run Android exclusively if that is your preference. However, TouchWiz gives you the same sort of integration that you’ll find in other popular devices on the market. After setting up your Google accounts, you have the option of quickly connecting your social networks: Facebook, Twitter and even MySpace. You can pull your various friends in as contacts if you wish, just as we could with the Samsung Wave.

The default array of apps is quite nice, including many popular choices. These included familiar standbys such as Layar, the Aldiko eBook reader, AllShare, Daily Briefing and Social Hub. One very cool feature is having the ability to have both Android Market and Samsung Apps in the menu.

There are a few issues that I should point out. No phone is perfect, and this one is not an exception to that rule. There are some slight lag issues when performing certain tasks: opening the email inbox, viewing a selected message and having pop-up contextual messages seeming to hover on the screen a few seconds longer than they should. New SMS alerts are not removed from your notification bar until you actually tap the new conversation bubble and open it in a new page/pane. This isn’t a big “deal,” but it does cause you to go through an extra step every time you receive a new text.

Overall, I feel the Samsung Galaxy S will make a great smartphone for many of you out there. The positives definitely far outweigh the negatives with this device. It’s well made, has clear call capabilities and has pretty impressive multimedia skills.